


Walk In The Night

by the-canary (siruru)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Kidnapping, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Denial of Feelings, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mutant Reader, Mutual Pining, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Protective Bucky Barnes, Reader-Insert, Road Trips, Self-Esteem Issues, Soul-Searching, Temporary Amnesia, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 16:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19771795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siruru/pseuds/the-canary
Summary: Death is a subject that should be easy for someone like Bucky after all these decades – well it isn ‘t and he finds out even more about himself and her along the way.





	1. good mourning.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”
> 
> this is for @softhairbarnes’s writing challenge. i am sorry in advance because idk where this is going.

_“Come on, Bucky,” she laughs from her spot on his couch. She watches him move back and forth, “You’ve got this in the bag!”_

_Blue eyes turn to her as he gives her a shaky smile. She grins before getting up and picking a certain checkered button-up. He had thrown it away earlier, “You’ll be fine.”_

_“I don’t know what makes you keep saying that,” Bucky can’t help but shake his head. She keeps smiling, through her eyes seem to dim a bit more. There is a somber air to her, but only for a split second before she hits him lightly on the shoulder._

_“Cause you already did the scariest part,” she goes on, “You already told her how you feel about her.”_

If Bucky had known then what he did now, he would have grabbed her and told her the truth. He would have held her as tight as he could and never let her go. He would say all the words that he has told someone else a week before this stupid, failed date.

**If he had known this was the last day he would see her alive, Bucky would have changed it in so many ways.**

Instead, he wakes up screaming when she walks through his bedroom door once more. 

* * *

He doesn’t wake up at the same time he usually does. Bucky had been awake for hours since the nightmare and had been training the gym since then. Pounding into every poor punching bag that he could find until they were destroyed on the ground.

Sam is the first one to come in that morning. Bucky had gone from seething angry and guilty to simple remorse at the memories that haunted him. He had already started to clean the mess he had made when Sam came in. Sam knew that Bucky had come a long way since his days in Romania and as the Winter Soldier. But this loss was still fresh and raw within him.

And without all the details of what had happened after she had left the Avengers Tower and what ended up happening to her… Well, the pain was only going to linger if they never found out the truth.

“Are you going to visit her today?” Sam remarks he moves around the gym. Blue eyes meets his for a moment.

“Maybe,” is all Bucky says.

What else could he say when there was no grave to visit.

* * *

**Albuquerque, NM**

“Hey,” a voice echoes as a person shakes another in a dark room, “You gotta wake up.”

Said sleeping person moves around before opening their eyes. The woman above them gives them a small smile. Jean still doesn’t understand how this person can sleep through all the commotion of the bar below. They yawn and scratch the back their neck before stepping into the creaking wooden floor.

“What now, Jeannie?” they yawn as they make it out of the little room and into a larger kitchen. Jean shakes her head as she pushes a plate with various breakfast food. They were better that they didn’t have solely rely on stale cereal and Hot Pockets.

“Nicky says there’s something in the old mine,” the dark-haired woman starts off. They dig into breakfast in the middle of the night.

“There’s somethin’ always in the mine,” they remark in a disinterested and that’s Jeannie decides to get them.

“This thing is glowing,” Jean remarks. They stop eating to look at the short woman.

“ _Now, that is somethin_ g,” they state with a growing smile and literal stars in their eyes. 


	2. things that go bump in the night.

_“Come on, Bucky,” she laughs as she holds out her hand. Blue eyes watch her sway back and forth while Sinatra plays in the background, “I’ll be here the whole time.”_

_It had been three years since everything had gone down with Thanos and the world was barely  back to normal, but not in some ways . Sam has taken up the mantle of Captain America with Bucky by his side to help, alongside some S.H.I.E.L.D agents at times. _

_It had been a rough acclimation without Steve there, but Bucky knew that his best friend was finally enjoying his time without the weight of Captain America . He got postcards from wherever he was at the time. Sometimes alone and sometimes with someone very special at his side.  Bucky was happy that Steve was happy, and  slowly  but  surely  he would find some semblance of that as well -- with friends, his career, and his past as well ._

_“I’m ain’t sorry if I set on your toes, doll,” he huffs out with a laugh but follows her lead anyways. She rolls her eyes, as she pushes Bucky into taking up dancing once more. She needs a date for the Stark Memorial Gala._

_As they dance the night away, Bucky comes to realize how truly happy he has become in the 21st century, even if it’s only on a day by day basis._

It’s then that he wakes up punching the pillow once more.

* * *

**Albuquerque, NM**

“Are ya sure you hafta to go?” Jean asks from her side of the bar countertop. You give her a weary smile before digging into your hastily made breakfast. 

You knew that this was more for her sense of self-preservation than her caring about your personal well-being. She already knew that the old truck outside was all packed with your essentials. The sentiment was nice but completely unnecessary. You stab your breakfast with the fork before you talk. 

“I’ll be back in a day or two,” you remark as her shoulders shag, “Besides Nick promised a good chunk of change for this.” 

Jeannie doesn’t say another word, as she starts whipping the countertop and you got up from your seat. You grab your backup and smile at the older woman’s direction. 

“Take care of yourself,” she yells out as you walk out, though you feel that she wants to say something else. That she wants to stop you from looking and searching, like millions of others. 

“People gain and lose stuff every day. They should  just  strap their booths and move one.” 

Jean thought you were one of those people in the former, but to be honest you didn’t even remember your life before or after “the snap”  .  Your mind had been a huge blank since Jean Darcy had picked up a battered and severely beaten person outside of the city.

You remember her screaming and the bright hospital lights, but everything else what a complete and utter blank. That had been almost two years ago and since then you had gotten a name and a profession of being what people called “T-Scavengers” . They were those that looked for things of value and importance in the aftermath of Thanos. 

Even after five years since the incident, there were still things and people were trying to make their lives feel right again. There were also those, like private detectives but more versatile, that sought these people and things that they had lost while in the vast amber world that Thanos had created.

You weren't exactly like those who were searching for or those who did the searching for them, but you were always looking for something. Looking for that one little detail that could tell you about who you were in this big world.

And as you head down the 25 highway once more, you keep struggling to hang onto a very loose thread. 

* * *

It two days afterward that Jean sees it on the screen, as she gets ready to open the bar for the night crowd. She drops her rag as eyes stay trained on the screen. 

_\--THE RIO MINE HAS COLLAPSED ON ITSELF. UNKNOWN HOW MANY--_

Jeannie tries not to fall apart right then and there while hoping that nothing had happened to a certain someone. 

* * *

Sam isn’t sure what he was brought into a small hospital in New Mexico instead of heading with Bucky in Europe. It didn't help that they had learned that the remnants of HYDRA were popping up once more. It seemed that the bad guys were back and up in full force once m. Yet, he had received a call from a certain Director that told him it was urgent that he be here, anyone but Bucky Barnes.

That’s when the warning sirens went off, but Sam has to be civil and get all the necessary info before he pushed forward with any plan of action.

Thus, he ends up sitting across a masked figure wearing large goggles. They took them off and even coughed a little, as their eyes meet and brown eyes widen.  Dirty, soaked shirt against charred skin though there were areas where the skin was peeling off to reveal fresh and clear skin instead. It was like a snake shedding its old skin for new. 

This person was an enhanced, but that wasn’t the worst thing. No, that came when their face was free of any obstruction and he heard their voice. 

“Hey, aren’t you Captain America?” they ask, confused, “What do they have you talking to little ‘ol me?”

Why was a person that had died in a bombing staring at him in the white-washed room?


	3. ghost.

_ Sometimes, he dreams of the one line over and over again. He sees plush lips and teeth biting on them, as she lets out a self-decrypting laugh.  _

_   
“Sometimes,” she whispers in the dead of night by his side, “I think I’ll leave all of you first.”  _

_ Bucky remembers and dreams of when his heart would stop at such a sentiment. His eyes would crinkle with angry and a reprimand would be on his lips, ready to tell not to think such thoughts. However, he would be met with darkened eyes instead that glimmered like stars, like she knew so much more than him who had lived for over a century.  _

_ She giggles before shoving his shoulder, “Just kidding.”  _

_ Bucky regrets not telling her to stop saying that and for doubting her at all. And it’s the dreams of those moments where something bad always seems to fall him in the waking world. _

* * *

Light comes in scattered throughout the closed blinds as you stare at the blue and green hospital floor. You have been when Jean had first found you -- shedding and barely conscious after she had found you tossed in the highway. It was still an unpleasant thought, but the haziness of the memory made the preceding sense of loneliness a bit more bearable. However, as you play with a path of receding skin, looking at the handsome  _ new  _ Captain America made it easier to ignore those thoughts. You give him a grin, as brown eyes meet your own. You can’t help but think that whatever he is here won’t be any good for you. 

“So,” Captain America starts once more, as you remove the layer of dead skin on your neck, “What exactly were you doing in the cave when it came down?” 

“I already those Men in Black-wearing suits,” you sigh, leaving into the chair, “Treasure hunting.” 

“Treasure hunting?” he answers back in disbelief. Surely, Captain America knew what some people did to earn a living in this environment or to just let go of the dead (sometimes missing) in some way. 

“Yeah,” you shrug, “Some people are still looking for things that they’ve lost or don’t ‘member. I help them out as best I can.” 

Captain America nods, as if understanding all too well, before taking a chair and moving closer to you: “And who exactly sent you to that?” 

You gaped at him like a fish for a moment. The rash that came with shedding new to old skin making you stretch your upper forearm a bit more than usual, not because of the send question that tickled your spine with dread. You had an answer he wouldn’t like -- most of the answers that you gave people were never what they really wanted. 

“I don’t know,” you breathe out, “They were all ‘mysterious and dark about it.” 

* * *

It takes Bucky another 72 hours before he can complete the mission he was on and head back to the States -- New Mexico to be exact. From what he understood, there had been various explosions throughout the West Coast and mostly at the same time. There wasn’t much damage to cities -- it was all near small and often abandoned towns near the desert, but the bright green glow of all of them, in particular, was enough to catch the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D. 

It wasn’t like he worked with the now-rebuilt organization. He worked with Captain America -- Sam, as frustrating as fun as it could be-- and the offshoot of the Avengers he had created in the aftermath of Thanos’ destruction...and what had happened to Peter in Europe. Just as normal people needed to be protected from the anomalies of the universe, they needed protection as well. 

They worked which more discretion than the original Avengers, but it came with international support and much more thanks to the Stark Foundation and--

“Hey,” Sam greets him, dragging Bucky away from his train of thought, “How was the flight, tin man?” 

Sam pats him on the back as they make it into a small, rustic-looking building. It would be their headquarters for now. 

“Tiresome, birdbrain,” Bucky chuckles. They weren’t as combative as they were when they first met in Germany, their relationship easing into teasing and friendly banter -- well when everything was going well enough, “What have you found out?” 

“Nothing,” Sam answers back, “The only real lead isn’t really talking.” 

“Wh--?”

“It isn’t like I’m not telling ya,” a voice, too familiar if not just a pitch higher comes in from the back. Bucky can see the worried look on Sam’s face. Brown eyes give him that look that he should brace himself, furthering adding to Bucky’s confusion.

Steps echoed in the hallway as a figure comes to the forefront of the back entrance, “--It’s just really hard to get all the details together.” 

Familiar eyes meet Bucky’s and he feels the air has left his body as that face --one that he hasn’t seen in a very long time-- gives him an excited smile. 

“Oh,” she remarks, as Bucky can tell her hair is slightly shorter than before and there are more scars and bruises than there should be, “You must be Bucky Barnes!”

Bucky is standing there between elation and confusion, as he slowly comes to realize that there is no sign of recognizing him in her eyes. His hand trembles as he looks at Sam.

“What the hell is going on?” is all he can manage to breathe out, as her smile falls just a bit. 


End file.
